Life as We Know It
by Lady Asher
Summary: What happened to the other mutants that were at Itex when Max and company broke out? This follows the story of a group of those people and their adventures after a taste of freedom. I ACTUALLY UPDATED! R&R, please! No rewrites this time!
1. Prologue

**L****ife as We Know It: a Maximum Ride fanfiction by nightengale07 **

_**Summary:** Kia (OC) escapes with a few friends from main Itex headquarters in Germany when the flock breaks out and goes on to destroy other labs and do general good in the world while being chased by evil scientists._

_**A/N: This is my first fic, so if you're gonna review, please be constructive! I don't care if you're nice, but there's nothing I hate more than pointless flames. Please, R&R, but make it count! **_

_**Character's POV**, thoughts, _"spoken words"

Prologue

_**Kia**_

I was cleaning the barracks with a few others when the order came. A few of the wolf-bots that we'd been seeing for a few months stood in the doorway, and one yelled "Listen!" at all of us. Like there was any noise anyway, with there being only about 30 of us left and all of us conditioned to talk in whispers. The whitecoats had cameras everywhere.

But anyway, everyone stopped whatever it was they were doing (I was making beds – stupid chore roster…) and turned toward the thing. We subconsciously stood at attention – the whole routine becomes ingrained after a few years of beatings and no food.

I guess before I tell you all this I should explain just who I am. Well, my name is Kia. Kihawahine, actually, but if you call me that I'll slug you. Unless you're a whitecoat. Then I'll just want to really, really bad. I was named after a Hawaiian lizard goddess, but I don't use the name my captors gave me unless I have to. I'm an experiment, to put it bluntly. A mutant, victim of a series of genetic shuffling techniques that left me about eight percent lizard. Charming, eh?

But I'm completely serious. It's in my nature to joke around (along with a lot of other stuff), but basically I was created for a purpose. _To go to war_. Once again with the charm. Still, though, I get along. I've been treated pretty well in this hellhole of a castle, holed up in the middle of Germany with a bunch of other failed recombinants. 'Cause yeah, I am a failure. Just don't rub it in.

I said before that I'm 8 percent lizard, and I wasn't kidding. I'm part chameleon, and I can change my appearance at will. To the whitecoats, I'm the perfect spy. The color of my skin can easily adjust to match my background, and that's all they need to know. They're happy with it, sure; it's what I was made for, after all. But I can feel the potential for so much more. If only I had a mirror, I could probably change just abut anything I want to that has to do with my body. I mean, how else could you explain the fact that the whitecoats could never cut my hair unless I wanted it short, how it grew back in less than a night? Seriously, people.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention something. I have wings. Yeah, go on and gasp, I know you want to, and then you'll ask "Well, how can she have wings if she's part lizard?" Hey, don't ask me, folks. These membranes of skin and bone have been growing out of my back for as far back as I can remember. Oh, didn't I mention? They're bat wings. Or close enough not to matter, anyway – they look exactly like a real bat's, but about 20 times larger.

I'm not sure how I got them, and neither are the whitecoats assigned to my 'well-being." They were thrilled when the things started to grow – I was three then – and I heard the words genetic mutation a lot. It wasn't until a few years later, when my wings were fully grown and they took me away from what few friends I had made for special testing, that I fully understood just what those words meant.

For me, it was ten years of almost constant agony and hate. I'm sixteen now, or at least close – time passes oddly when you're in a cage – and I'm ready to leave. Now, before it's too late. And this just might be my opportunity.

But while all this was going through my head, the wolf-bot was urgently beckoning to us. "You need to come with me. All of you. _Now. _Director's orders. "

_Great. Here we go again._

**It's short, but there'll be more to come. Now, click that pretty purple button and tell me what you think! Please? (cue sad puppy dog eyes) C'mon, you know you want to! **_  
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	2. Chapter 1: This is the end

**Ok, updating so my friend doesn't kill me…  
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_**Kia**_

Chapter 1 - **This is the end.**

We followed it, of course. Like I said, years of training tended to kick in under certain circumstances. Everyone fell into a rough line – I didn't know any of the other hybrids enough to say who was by me, really the only thing I knew was that everyone was some kind of failed recombinant, though most of our problems were mainly failing to be perfect – and we trooped up to the courtyard.

It was… different that usual. The walls were filled with bleacher-like structures of people whose clothing and postures practically screamed "government idiots" and all turned to look at us when we filed neatly in. We congregated in a small mob, all facing the freshly-erected "stage" at one end of the yard. We waited about five minutes, and then, just as everyone was getting jumpy, the doors to one side of where all the experiments was standing opened again, and a ragged-looking group came out.

It looked like there was four of them, but they were surrounded by some more of those wolf-bot things, and I couldn't get a good look. Then the bots all moved aside and joined their counterparts lining the walls of the courtyard, and I could stare my fill at the newbies.

I had been right – there were four, three girls and a…. male, I guess I would have to say, because he didn't look like any boy I had ever seen, more like a non-mechanical version of the robots stationed along the perimeter. The girls all looked perfectly normal, but that didn't fool me – normal humans wouldn't need a five-point guard of armed robots.

That, and there was the fact that all of them looked fairly murderous and battle-ready, especially the eldest. That one looked maybe a year or two younger than me, and the other two were maybe eleven and six.

I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye, and turned back towards the stage to see the huge metal door open and a woman walk out. I ground my teeth angrily, recognizing the infamous face of the Director, who had been broadcasting multilingual end-of-the-world propaganda for the whole time that I'd been in this hellhole of a castle-prison.

She didn't even have to open her mouth, and I was already thinking, _Well, this is going to be interesting – __**not.**_

It definitely wasn't. Interesting, that is. Basically, the old hag babbled on about all of her pet company's "stunning achievements," most of them including the things I'd grown up with and still occasionally had nightmares about. The nano-bullets and the butterflies, for instance. Everyone, the government wanks and the crowd of mutants, gasped at that one.

I have to say, though, that I ground my teeth whenever I saw a recombinant that I'd grown up with. Or not so much the specific person (or mutant, rather) that I knew, but the 'breed.' The chameleon hybrids, for instance, with the color-changing skin. The group that I'd once been part of, that had kicked me out because of my wings.

They'd said it was special testing at the time. Special testing my wild donkey. **(Gotta keep the rating down, people. You get the picture though, right?)** More like ten-odd years of pain and hate, while I passed my healthy, well-fed former comrades in the halls of our prison. It was a prison to me, anyway. To them, it probably felt like home.

But anyway, my jaw was starting to hurt from all this teeth-grinding when the Director finally seemed about to come to her conclusion. Then I started listening to what she was saying, and I almost groaned out loud. Generation Omega. Her baby boy that she was finally getting to show off to the world._ Here we go..._

But then, after only about thirty seconds of gushing praise, the hag looked directly into the crowd of rejects and said, "Right, Max?" I realized she was looking at the oldest girl from the group that had come in last, still standing near the wall. The girl whose face I watched grow deathly white as the director continued, "Maximum Ride and Omega will fight to the death." My brain ground to a shuddering halt. _Wait, what?  
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Ok, I had really missed something here.

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**Yes, she really has. Kia, this is what you get for not paying attention to the crazy, world-destroying witch when she's talking! **

**But anyway, sorry for the very long wait between this chapter and the prologue. I had a lot of homework that I hopefully won't be overloaded with again for a while, so I'll probably come in again with the next chapter sometime in the next week or so. This one is still short, but even thought it's a longer short now, the story's not even halfway close to being done! Thanks a lot to everyone who reviewed, and don't worry - Kia is pointedly_ not_ a "Max clone," though they may occasionally display the same sense of humor, because Max and _I_ have much the same sense of humor, and Kia is my character, so... yeah. Oh, and since I have so many awesome reviewers, I'll probably start replying personally in future chapters. I just don't have enough time right now, sry! **

**Please ignore my rambling; just REVIEW! Please? The more reviews I get, the bigger my warm fuzzy feeling is inside, and the faster I update! You _do_ want that, right?:) **


	3. Chapter 1, Part 2

**Sorry about the last chapter, guys - if you couldn't review, it's because I added on another part to the chapter and this site won't let you review again. So, again, sorry! Feel free to post any comments on last chapter in your review for this one! (hint hint) But anyway, here's the update I've been asked for - it's short, but review anyway!**

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**_Kia_ **

Oh, yeah. I had _really_ missed something here. I wracked my brains trying to think of what I had heard and ignored a second before. Gushing praise for Omega from the Director - no, that wasn't it. A load of crap about the "new world we are creating" - nope, not that either. Had I heard something about vanquishing (only the director would use that word) a moderately successful something-hybrid? Maybe that was it. And that unlucky hybrid's name was apparently Maximum Ride.

Poor kid. I'd seen for myself what Omega was like in action. Cold, hard, practically unfeeling of any pain inflicted upon him by his unlucky victims. While I was thinking this, however, everyone was parting to make an aisle to where Max was standing with her group, staring at her like she had two heads or something. Said group was moving around her, trying to protect her, even as she shook her head to keep them back. Funny, the wolf-thing was trying to protect her, too. I'd thought he was just there for extra security; maybe he was a rogue or something? Who knows.

But anyway, Omega had to make an entrance, _of course_, so he did a flip or something off the stage and started flipping to where Max was standing with her fists up. He got there in a couple of seconds, and just as he straightened, the kid hit him with the fastest punch I had ever seen. And I'm pretty fast myself, so that's saying something. That just started a full-out brawl; Max even ended up dislocating Wonderboy's shoulder at one point, something that no one had ever been able to do. I was surprised she was still alive after all this time.

She was about to hit him again when the director called out, "Wait!" Max didn't listen, though Omega had frozen where he was and snapped to attention, and she apparently paid for it. She all of a sudden screamed and toppled to the ground, thrashing around in what looked like unbearable pain. Her companions quickly ran up and surrounded her, trying to help her up. She stopped screaming after a couple seconds and scrambled quickly to her feet. It was then that I noticed the metal collar around her neck, whick I guessed had given her the shock. Poor kid. You had to be really bad or really dangerous to be given one of those things.

The director wasn't too happy that she'd gotten up right away, I guess, because she sounded distinctly unthrilled when she announced the "first part of the contest," a test of speed. Max looked like death, but she got ready anyway as someone drew a line in the dirt and Omega came over to stand next to her. I heard a sarcastic comment come from her direction, but I hadn't had enough time to process it before the director shouted "Go!" and both of them took off.

Max was really fast, only lagging a few seconds behind Omega, who may have looked like a human-shaped blur to non-enhanced eyes. They ran from the line to the wall and back, neither of them breathing hard, not even Max though she looked ticked off as she started her final lap almost a full length behind Wonderboy's impassive face. Finally, I guess Max had had enough. She dove forward, like she had tripped and was going to do a face plant or something, which I could definitely see someone doing at that speed.

Instead, though, this gigantic pair of _wings_ shot out from her back and she literally flew the distance to the finish line in about three seconds, it was that fast. I think everyone around me gasped, but I was so stunned I wasn't sure. Okaaay... I guess I underestimated this girl. She ran to a halt, ten feet in front of Omega, and punched the air in victory. The director started yelling at her, but it didn't really register with me - I was too busy being astonished. _Well, I guess that solves the something-hybrid problem._

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**NG07's Chapterly Rant: Do I even have to say it? REVIEW!!!!! I was able to update much sooner than I thought, because everyone in my family went to this thing at my sister's school and I didn't have to go help out for once, so I booted up the laptop and told everyone that I was doing my homework. Oops :) HW sucks. End of story. Especially if it has to do with John Steinbeck and pearls... I swear I would hunt that guy down and kill him if he wasn't already dead. **

**But anyway, thanks to rogue4eva, Captain Wolf, lil'angel, skyflyer81310, and barigirl1 for your wonderful reviews! I'm sorry to say that you likely won't get another chapter again so soon. My weekend is absolutely _loaded_, thanks to rogue4eva... why does your birthday have to be so bloody close to Halloween? It's all your fault with the time-consuming costumes! (My 2 friends and I are being Max, Nudge, and Angel for Halloween - I get to be Max! Yay! But the costumes have taken up soon-to-be three of my hard-earned weekends so far, just to make! Just goes to show how obsessed we really are, I guess...) **

** Ignore my ramblings. Just read the first 2 sentences, and you'll be fine. :) **


	4. Author's note

**There used to be a chapter here, but it was rewritten later in the story because I really hated it and I didn't like the way that the plot was developing.**

**However, I did need to put _some_ kind of content here, so everybody who reviewed the original chapter could review the revised version.**

**So, basically, this is a filler.**

**Just skip over it.**

**However, you may want to check out the character specs that make up the other filler. **

**They might actually be kind of interesting.**

**Or not. **

**But anyway, sorry for any inconvenience.**

**And please don't stop reading just because of this annoying author's note!**


	5. Character specs

**Well, I'd like to apologize for that author's note. I really hated that chapter. This one, too, for that matter... Oh well. I'll give you some specs on Kia so you won't hate me forever. **

Full name: Kihawahine (she had a last name, actually, but I can't tell you that yet)

Age: 16

Hybrid: Chameleon

Power(s): Blend in with surroundings, has wings and can fly (does that count as a power?), others yet to be revealed (yes there are others...)

Origin: American

Height: about 5' 2'' (note: most of her height isn't in leg, it's in torso. Those wings need a lot of space to fold up into, and legs are mostly dead weight when you're flying. So think of just an average leg length, but add a few inches to her back.)

Weight: about 97 lbs. (again: think light bones. well, that and malnutrition.)

Coloring: Medium-light skin tone, lightly tanned

Hair color: Light brown/dark blond, with lighter natural highlights

Eye color: Green/hazel, changes with her mood

Wing coloring: Right around the joint area (where the wing material fades into her skin), tan fading to brown fading to light grey. Rest of wing surface: Grey/green, with the green being iridescent (think of green on a butterfly) and the grey being mroe sliver than anything else.

Wing composition: No scales, no feathers - think of bat wings with a bit of lizard thrown in. All leathery skin, bone, and sinew.

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**Possibly more to come as her character develops... I might actually keep adding to this, so check back once in a while to see if there's anything new. **


	6. Chapter 1, Part 3

**All right, go on and yell at me, I haven't updated for almost two months now - unlike some people I can name who need to update _again_ (coughcoughFlufferbunny37cough **- **read and review The Upper Hand or Only Six, please, and yell at her, too) but I think that I can honestly say that I've been pretty busy. Sort of. Ish. Not really. **

**Ok, no, I'm not a liar. I've been lazy. _Really_ lazy. But that's going to stop. Soon. I swear. I've actually got some ideas for the story now - I confess, I was kinda winging it before - and the first one is to rewrite that last post, cause frankly, it sucked. So here's the revised (and hopefully better) edition of Chapter 1, Part 3. I'm posting it after the fact, rather than deleting the material that's already there, so it doesn't try to tell you that you've already reviewed the chapter. I need input! Read, review, and tell me if I need to rewrite it again. Possible plot ideas would be nice, too - I have enough material to get them out of the Itex area, but I'm still a bit hazy on what's gonna happen after! R&R **

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Quite a bit happened after that, but I wasn't paying attention anymore. There was a tractor pull, some intellectual questions and a lot of mouthing off and yelling, but that was all I registered. After seeing Max's performance, I remembered a few snatches of stories I'd heard from escapees, tales passed along Itex's version of the Underground Railroad. Stories of a hybrid named Maximum Ride, who had liberated a lot of kids from places in the States. That Max had wings, too, and mentally comparing the mutant currently being told off down in the courtyard with the heroine from the kids' awestruck tales, I realized that this might be our chance to break out of this prison.

Max would likely try to get out, and with any luck, in the resulting confusion, I'd be able to make my own way out of the place. I hoped she would make it out, too - I was never an enemy of an enemy of the scientists here - but really, I was more interested in staying alive myself. If it wasn't for that stupid electric net above the castle walls, I would have been out of here the second we were called into the courtyard, but as it was, I was pretty much stuck on the ground unless the Director did something incredibly stupid, like turn it off. Uh, sorry, not likely. Not even she was that dense.

But I had just started to think about what I could do to get out of here, and maybe take out a few whitecoats along the way, when all hell broke loose. And I mean this literally. Everyone around me started hitting each other and yelling, and I looked around, bewildered. Had they all gone crazy, or was this some kind of mass expiration date kind of thing that I'd heard about?

Then it hit me, as I blocked a punch from one of the crazies: One of the girls with Max had, or so I had heard, the power to control minds. I didn't know that you could do stuff like this on such a large scale, but oh well… Maybe I was resistant to it or something. There had been stranger genetic freaks. Weird, I know, but so was the frog-combo thing that kept trying to hit me. I fended it off and subdued it with a sharp knock to the head, then looked around. If this was Max's way to make a bid for freedom, then how could I possibly use this to my advantage?

The open space in the courtyard that had been cleared for Max and Omega's showdown had completely disappeared beneath the sea of fighting mutants. The two contest participants were missing, too - oh, wait, no. Omega was standing there thunderstruck, and Max was fighting off the wolf-bots that had just started to wade into the crowd. I began to copy her, always happy to hit something that was conveniently evil and nearby, and started to make my way through the crowd to where the Director was yelling orders furiously, still standing on her stage. The mutants around me seemed to get the message and stopped hitting each other to gang up on the robots, conveniently taking down a few that were trying to sneak up on me from behind.

I saw the Director staring at a small clearing in the crowd, where I could see Max looking down at Omega's prone body, then walking away. I mentally applauded; if anyone could take down Wonderboy, it would probably be her. I didn't have any time to be jealous, though, because right then, rocks and things started raining down from over the walls. I heard shouts over the noise of the still-fighting crowd, sounding like a whole bunch of people outside were chanting something. I continued to fight my way toward the stage - not exactly sure what I intended to do, but knowing for sure that it involved breaking a few Director-y bones - when I heard the object of my not-so-merciful intentions order the robots to chase away the intruders that were currently knocking very loudly on the castle door.

Apparently she forgot about the net that was keeping everybody inside, because all of the remaining wolf-bots shortened their mechanical lifespans by about 100 percent crashing into it. I immediately saw a few younger mutants shoot out pairs of wings and hop over the walls. When they weren't immediately burned to a crisp, I surmised that the net had been short-circuited as well.

So, apparently, did Max, since I saw her and the African-American girl that had come in with her swoop onto the stage and pick up the Director, quickly taking her high above the castle, likely to beat a few answers out of the b-witch. I stopped trying to get to the stage and stared up at the dots I was sure was them, clenching my fists. Crap! Stupid avians, stealing the woman before I could get my hands on her… I'd been here longer, I deserved the revenge….

I turned back to the chaos in the courtyard, muttering angrily under my breath – yeah, I know, I have anger issues – then stiffened in surprise and had so stifle my immediate reaction – flight or flight, I'm not sure which – when I saw who had been outside.

There were a lot of kids - teenagers, mostly, but I saw a few older and younger people - standing around and staring at the scattered mutants and Flyboy remains. As I turned, I saw some of their eyes immediately fix on me, as one of the oldest people still standing. Again, crap. Their looks turned expectant as I stared back. What was I supposed to do here?

I didn't want to immediately fly away – my first response – because that would mean showing them my wings, and I really didn't think that the old trick of "Look! Behind you!" would work – even the wolf-men, with their IQ roughly equal to that of a brick wall, knew that one. Besides, it wasn't like I was actually fast enough to get up off the ground in the time their backs were turned; I needed either a good running start or a drop off of something to get going.

I started backing away slowly, not taking my eyes off of them, casting around for some solution to my problem. _What to do, what to do…_ One of the girls took the initiative away from me, however, and stepped forward. I barely prevented myself from settling into a fighting crouch and eyed her warily – these were just humans, right? _Please please please just let them be normal humans and not something else that's going to try to kill me…._

The girl gulped and looked around, seemingly not as sure of herself as she had first come across. I spoke, my distrust apparent even in my voice. "What do you want?" She jumped slightly – I guess my voice had seemed pretty loud in the relative quiet in the courtyard – and gulped again before visibly summoning up the courage to answer my question, albeit hesitantly.

"Umm, are you – are you Max? Maximum Ride?"

I stared at the kid in shock, my wary posture almost collapsing in astonishment. I answered almost before I could stop myself, not expecting that at all. "Me? No way." Then I shut up. Why had I even said anything? I must have really been surprised - one of the doctrines I had held to since early childhood was "Never give anyone more information than they absolutely need." I was saved from any more questions the next minute, though (I had seen the girl opening her mouth again) by the soft whisper of wings behind me.

I whirled, hearing gasps from the crowd of humans behind me, only to see the Director lowered to the ground, more gently than I would have ever done. I glanced up a bit slowly from glaring at the Director's face (nicely white - I was glad to see that Max hadn't been too lenient with her), to see a certain winged person I happened to recognize come in for a landing.

"Did someone say my name?"

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**So we meet the mighty Maximum Ride at last. Review, and I might actually get the beginning of Chapter 2 up by next week! (Yeah, I rewrote that too. Don't worry. I think I can say that it's actually better.) REVIEW!!!!!!!!!!!**

**And tell me if I'm pushing it, cause it feels like it. ) **


	7. Chapter 2: Meetings

**Yay, new chapter! No more rewrites. It's completely different, I promise. I won't be able to update on any kind of schedule, but I can promise that you'll get at least three chapters a month for a while. Hopefully more, if I can manage it. Please remember to review - I really like to hear from anyone who reads this! **

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Chapter 2 - **Meetings**

_**Kia**_

Huh. Well Max definitely wasn't what I had expected. Up close, she looked pretty scruffy, actually. Her clothes were torn, her hair was a mess, and the only part of her that looked at all presentable was her wings – white-streaked tan, with a few brown spots. I took this in in all of a few seconds, as she touched down lightly and folded her wings out of sight. A few of the kids behind me let out their breaths in a sigh. I snorted mentally. Yeah, these were humans, all right. Way too easily impressed.

Max looked them over, and looked me over from where I had turned so that I could have both her and the humans in my line of vision. She nodded, evidently at ease with what she saw, and turned to the girl next to her, who was restraining the Director still. The witch was breathing hard and wasn't even trying to get away; she must've been pretty scared. "Nudge, take her over to one of the rooms, would you? I'm not sure how to get back to the dungeon…" At that, the Director came alive. She struggled suddenly and broke the girl's hold, turning to try to run towards the platform where she had stood before, where I could see her remote lying on the ground nearby.

Max had barely even lunged toward her when I had the Director in my hands. She stiffened and gasped as I applied pressure to one of the general pressure points on the body – my self-defense classes had done me good all throughout my life. I put my mouth close to her ear, bending down slightly (I was a few inches taller than she was, I noticed suddenly), and whispered, "Yeah, that hurts, doesn't it?"

She whimpered softly. I loosened my grip ever so slightly and went on. "Try that trick again and I won't be so nice. Now come with me until we can figure out a suitable punishment for you." Her whimper was louder at that reminder of what many a disciplinarian had said to an erring experiment just before a particularly painful test. I turned the Director around and marched her back to where Max stood, more than willing to get the witch off my hands. I had to pinch her twice to get her to stand up straight. Limp with terror she was, the poor thing – _not._

Max looked at me with approval and a bit of grudging admiration as I arrived with my trembling package back at the little group they had made. "Thanks," she said, before nodding at her friend to take charge of the woman again. I nodded, pinched the Director again for good measure, and with a whispered "Be good, now," melted into the crowd. I wanted to see how the great Maximum Ride handled _this_ particular problem.

No, I wasn't normally this judgmental (or abusive, in the Director's case) but I'd had years of training and conditioning in matters like these, and I wasn't about to abandon things I'd held by all my life now. Besides, the Director deserved it, and if Max proved herself capable of handling the situation, I wasn't about to stick around. The only reason I hadn't slipped over the walls before now was that if she turned out _not_ to be capable, I didn't want the Director to escape. Sad as it was, that woman was the only thing keeping me here right now.

She handled it well enough, though. Her little girl had joined her, and she gave a little speech about how the Director was down, Itex was dead, you're free now, blah blah blah. The experiments that had gathered around her sucked it all up, though. I even heard a couple cheers. The humans were looking pretty happy, too. Then she started talking about cleanup details, and I got ready to go. I didn't want to be here when the police showed up – the girl who had first spoken to me had said that someone had called them.

I cast around for an escape route. I really didn't want to have to deal with all of the scared whitecoats that were now milling around, looking for a way out of the enclosed courtyard. I saw a convenient corner where the walls were rougher than usual, and decided it was worth a try. Looking around to make sure no one was watching me, I pressed myself to the wall and felt the familiar itch/tickle/scratch that meant my particular power was taking effect. My skin looking exactly like the wall behind me, I slid over to the corner and quickly scaled the wall.

Crouching on top of the wall, I inhaled a breath of the amazingly clear air outside the compound, my first such almost since the time a year and a half ago when I had been brought here from the original compound in the States. I had forgotten how delicious it was…

I was so taken with the freshness of the air, almost drunk on it, that I had forgotten my incredibly obvious position on top of the wall. I heard footsteps behind me and turned, quickly preparing myself for an attack. I was taken aback when all I saw below me was a little girl, about six or seven, looking up at me with too-wise eyes.

"Why don't you come down?" she asked in a sweet little voice that made me long to do what she said. I shook my head, mostly to get rid of the fuzzy sensation that told me to do whatever the kid wanted. "Sorry kid, but I need to get out of here."

"Why?" she said, actually tilting her head in a quizzical manner. I responded without thinking, her little-kid voice irresistible in its sweetness.

"I don't want to stick around for any longer than I have to. I've been trying to get out for too long, and it's not like anyone here needs my help." I broke from her mindhold and looked down admiringly, hardly even noticing the semi-shocked expression on her face. "You came in with Max, didn't you? Nice trick." I stopped, remembering something. "You might want to tell her not to forget about the Director's remote thing. It could cause some problems if someone got their hands on it."

With that, I unfurled my wings from their hidden position, feeling their longer-than-normal bones open up from their closed-fan position and come out of the back of my slit jacket. I could feel the flaps of said jacket – once normal Itex issue before I had had a chance to adjust it for my unique needs – flapping around me as I let myself fall backwards off the wall.

Mentally chuckling at the little girl's gasp – I guess she hadn't seen the wings before I fell – I twisted in midair and flapped hard a few times, gaining a significant amount of altitude before tilting my body to glide toward trees dimly seen at the bottom of the hill. Reveling in the feeling of the wind whistling past the taut membranes of my wings – it had been far too long since I'd flown - I chanced a look back, telling myself that it was just to make sure no one had followed me.

I could see from my position that Max had the various inhabitants of the courtyard well in hand. The whitecoats were milling around in a corner, guarded by some of the more militaristic-looking mutants, and the rest of the mutants and the group of humans were busy picking up the various rocks and robot carcasses that littered the ground. They'd be fine; I couldn't think why they'd need me.

Not that I'd have stayed if they had. It was past time for a taste of freedom.

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**So, what do you think? I might have said this before - I don't know - but the story's going in a completely different direction than I had originally thought it would be, so you might have to change your point of view a bit. Next chapter will probably be from Max's POV, fyi. Review, please! **


	8. Chapter 2, Part 2: Insert Angel

**Well, haven't I been a bad little girl? No updates for almost three months, and this mini-update isn't even what I said it would be... Angel instead of Max, so sorry, and it definitely isn't my best writing, but I'll update back with Kia very soon (maybe even today) and the story will actually go somewhere. (gasp!) **

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_**Angel**_

I stared up at the wall where the really pretty girl with the soft voice had crouched a second before. She fell so fast... I relaxed as I caught a glimpse of her floating toward the trees at the bottom of the hill on leathery greenish-gray wings. They were surprisingly pretty, actually… there was a kind of iridescence to them that I could just barely pick out, even with my raptor vision, as Max calls it.

I turned to go back to where I could hear Max orchestrating the cleanup and all that stuff – her thoughts were full of "Where to put this?" and "What to do with these?" and, overshadowing everything, "How long until the cops get here?" I would have to tell her not to worry – one of the human kids was thinking of how far away from here even the nearest town was, and that town didn't even have a police station.

But that girl… she bothered me. I tried to make her come down off that wall, and she just shook it off like I had thrown dust at her… at least I knew I could read her mind. She never thought her name, though, so I had no idea how I would find her again. And I wanted to; what bothered me was that I had no idea why.

I reached Max, and she smiled absently down at me, still giving orders. The place was looking better already. "Max? You know that girl that grabbed the Director?" I asked. "Yeah? What about her?" Max replied, still thinking of what needed to be done before we could leave. "Well, you thought that you wanted to talk to her… I don't think you'll be able to."

Max turned her whole attention on me suddenly. "Why not?" I fidgeted slightly. "Umm… she kinda left. I tried to stop her, but she wouldn't… listen. She flew off towards the woods." I motioned in the direction she had gone. Max frowned. "Flew? She's an avian?" I didn't know quite what to say. "Um, no. She had kind of greenish leathery wings…"

Max pondered for a moment. "Well, I would have liked to talk to her, but it really doesn't matter. Thanks anyway, though, Ange." "But-" I started, then broke off as the Director broke free from where Nudge had been holding her and made a bid for the stage, where I could see her remote still laying where she had dropped it when Max and Nudge picked her up. "Max, look--!" I shouted, thinking in the back of my mind, _That girl warned about this, too…_

One of the other mutants turned at my shout as Max was still turning to look where I had pointed. Putting on an incredible burst of speed, he bowled the Director over just as she reached the stage, left her in the dust, grabbed the remote, and tossed it to Max. Her hand came up automatically to catch it, and the mutant on the stage grinned, showing slightly pointed teeth. _Cheetah,_ I thought automatically, watching as the Director got up, shook her head slightly, and looked around to find who had knocked her over.

She looked at the stage, but the kid had already vaulted lightly off and disappeared into the crowd. Nudge quickly recaptured the Director, enlisting the help of one of the stronger-looking mutants to hold on to the witch. She looked kind of embarrassed that the woman had managed to pull away from her a second time. Max gave her an encouraging smile and turned her thoughts back to the compound. _Well, this ought to make things a bit easier,_ she mused, looking down at the remote in her hand.

I moved off, confident that Max would take care of everybody. Besides, there was that idea in the back of her mind that made me think. Anything that would get us out of this horrible place and back to Gazzy and the other boys was definitely worth following up on. Now the question was, would I be able to find the right people for the jobs…

I headed purposefully off into the crowd of mutants, already searching for the minds of the leaders we would need so we could leave this place.

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**Not much of a chapter, I know. More to come. Review? Please? If only just to tell me how absolutely horribly bad this is? **


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